10 How THE FABM PAYS. 



Tided he has the elements of success within himself. But this 

 advice is only applicable to young men. It would be folly for 

 men of middle age or past it to make the attempt. In this con- 

 nection I may cite a very marked case, and one which gives me 

 a, very pleasing remembrance. Dr. Shann, of York, England, 

 wrote to me some twelve years ago, asking me to take his son, 

 a young man of twenty-one, who had just completed a college 

 course at Cambridge. I agreed to his proposal, and the young fellow 

 duly appeared one morning, very unlike the ideal farmer indeed, 

 dressed in the latest fashion and cane in hand. I much feared to 

 look at him, that he would not be a success at the plow; but after 

 allowing him to prospect around for a few days, I told him that the 

 contract between his father and me required that he should take hold 

 and obey orders the same as my ordinary hired men. He at once 

 ivent down to the village, rigged himself out with a pair of overalls, 

 flannel shirt and strong boots, and announced himself ready. His 

 first initiation to work was assisting to wash a herd of Berkshire pigs 

 shoulder to shoulder with a rough Irishman. From this point I 

 saw that he was made of the right stuff, and placed him during the 

 year and a half .that he was with me through all the grades of our 

 ^work. He was so energetic and trustworthy, that after he had been 

 with me a year, I entrusted him to take a lot of cattle, sheep and 

 swine to the State Fair at Atlanta, Ga., with permission to sell all if 

 he deemed the price sufficient. This he did to my entire satisfaction. 

 "While there he saw a farm which his father purchased and stocked 

 ior him, and to-day he is one of the most successful farmers, perhaps, 

 in Georgia. 



(Mr. H.) I have always some five or six such men in my employ- 

 ment who have come to learn the finer parts of Horticulture. They 

 come to us at a younger age than would be suitable for the heavier 

 work of the farm, usually from fifteen to sixteen, and I select all by 

 the merit of their letters of application, for I hold, that with the ad- 

 Tantages of education which our school system affords, if a boy at six- 

 teen has not had ambition enough to be able to write intelligently at 

 that age, the chances are that he is not likely to become an intelligent 

 workman; and for an apprentice we want nothing else, as we can get 

 all the hewers of wood and drawers of water we want, at our doors; 

 "but brains are not so easily obtained. But with all our care in select- 

 ing, not more than one in ten ever attains to any prominence, and such 

 usually develop superiority from the first. About ten years ago I 

 received an application from a boy living in one of the suburbs of 

 New York. He said that he was sixteen, and his letter was so terse and 

 to the point that I told him to call. When he made his appearance 



